Multiple Forms Research Articles

Why Reinvent the Wheel? Materializing multiplicity to resist reification in alternative organizations

Often we unconsciously take for granted that there is not really an alternative to how we currently organize society – we tend to reify existing social order, misperceiving the way things are now as the way things must be. Such reification constrains our agency by discouraging the thought that we could do better. Alternative organizations undermine this reification by manifesting the real possibility of organizing differently. Such dereification is valuable in itself insofar as it lifts constraints on agency, facilitating intentional choice regarding the social systems we (re)produce. A case study of this dereification is offered by the Réseau Alimentaire Local (RAL), a network of French ‘solidarity groceries’ unified by the pursuit of more just and sustainable alternatives to the dominant model. Groups within the RAL develop their own software to manage these novel alternatives. We were struck, however, by some groups’ efforts to reify their own solutions, disparaging other approaches as mere attempts to ‘reinvent the wheel’. The case thus raised a tricky question: can alternative organizations dereify existing social order without at the same time reifying their proposal, thereby reimposing constraints on agency? Our exploration through the RAL case grounds two contributions. First, conceptualizing reification in terms of materializing abstract ideas, we demonstrate how any given organizational configuration contributes to the materialization of multiple ideas simultaneously. We identify two forms of such multiplicity: vertical multiplicity, where nested relational networks materialize coherent ideas that differ only in their degree of specificity; and horizontal multiplicity, where intersecting relational networks materialize divergent ideas of the same degree of specificity. We argue that failure to recognize this multiplicity accounts for a great deal of materiality’s reifying capacity, while its recognition can facilitate new ways of approaching the dereification challenge. Our second contribution is therefore a strategy for resisting reification: materializing multiplicity.

Art Gallery Education Between Translation and Dialogism: Artwork, Learning and Pedagogy

ABSTRACT Drawing on insights drawn from multidisciplinary studies of the arts and translation studies, this article aims to conceptualize the work of translation within art gallery education. It unpacks and characterizes a mode of translation that is unique and necessary for an engaging art gallery education, taking multiple and subtle forms, operating on different facets of the conception and delivery of art gallery education activities. This includes a resourceful way of translating different values that could pull art gallery education in different directions, i.e. making different values translatable into one another, including the aesthetic value of the artwork, the value of learning and education for diverse and multiple users and participants, as well as the values that participants bring into an art gallery education. An indispensable component of art gallery education still consists of bringing into play an element of propositional knowledge about art, not as an end in itself based on the traditional parameters of the cultivation of taste and appreciation, but to develop experimental and creative dialogical forms of engagement and relational aesthetics. The ultimate aim is to use the arts as a platform for a pedagogic translation driven by the principles of dialogism and a collaborative ethos.

CSPG4-dependent cytotoxicity for C. difficile TcdB is influenced by extracellular calcium and chondroitin sulfate.

Clostridioides difficile is a leading cause of antibiotic-associated gastrointestinal illness, and many disease pathologies are caused by the toxin TcdB. TcdB engages multiple cell surface receptors, with receptor tropisms differing among the variants of the toxin. Chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan 4 (CSPG4) is a critical receptor for multiple forms of TcdB, and insights into TcdB-CSPG4 interactions are applicable to many disease-causing strains of C. difficile. CSPG4 is modified by chondroitin sulfate (CS) and contains laminin-G repeats stabilized by Ca2+, yet the relative contributions of CS and Ca2+ to TcdB cytotoxicity have not been determined. This study demonstrates distinct roles in TcdB cell binding and cell entry for Ca2+ and CS, respectively. These effects are specific to CSPG4 and contribute to the activities of a prominent isoform of TcdB that utilizes this receptor. These findings advance an understanding of factors contributing to TcdB's mechanism of action and contribution to C. difficile disease.

Prevalence and risk factors of osteoporotic fracture among the elderly population in China: a multicenter cross-sectional study.

Prevalence of osteoporotic fracture (OPF) is increasing with ageing, resulting in a significant financial burden for healthcare. However, research on the nationwide epidemiological data of OPF in Chinese elderly is still scarce. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and risk factors of OPF in Chinese population aged 60years or order. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in an elderly Chinese population in five centres. Questionnaire investigation and imaging examination were taken in all participants to identify OPF prevalence and risk factors. Diagnosis of OPF was determined based on imaging of vertebral fractures or history of fall-related fractures. We then used multivariate logistic regression model to analyze the associations between the potential risk factors and OPF. The overall prevalence of OPF in population aged 60years or older was 24.7% (1,071/4,331), showing an increasing trend with age (P < 0.001). The prevalence of OPF was geographically distinct (P < 0.001), but similar between men and women (P > 0.05). Up to 96.8% of OPFs consisted of vertebral fractures, especially involving T11, T12, and L1 segments. Advanced age (≥ 80), vision loss, severe hearing loss, multiple exercise forms, chronic kidney disease, osteoarthritis, and trauma-related vertebral fractures were significantly associated with risk factors, while education level and vitamin D supplementation were associated with protective factors of OPF. High prevalence of OPF is a serious threat to bone health among elderly people in China. There is an urgent need for effective strategies to diagnose, prevent, and treat OPF in elderly adults.

Orthogonal neural encoding of targets and distractors supports multivariate cognitive control.

The complex challenges of our mental life require us to coordinate multiple forms of neural information processing. Recent behavioural studies have found that people can coordinate multiple forms of attention, but the underlying neural control process remains obscure. We hypothesized that the brain implements multivariate control by independently monitoring feature-specific difficulty and independently prioritizing feature-specific processing. During functional MRI, participants performed a parametric conflict task that separately tags target and distractor processing. Consistent with feature-specific monitoring, univariate analyses revealed spatially segregated encoding of target and distractor difficulty in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. Consistent with feature-specific attentional priority, our encoding geometry analysis revealed overlapping but orthogonal representations of target and distractor coherence in the intraparietal sulcus. Coherence representations were mediated by control demands and aligned with both performance and frontoparietal activity, consistent with top-down attention. Together, these findings provide evidence for the neural geometry necessary to coordinate multivariate cognitive control.

Ideal and real paradigms: language users, reference works and corpora

Abstract This article approaches defective and overabundant paradigm cells as an opportunity and pitfall for usage-based linguistics. Through reference to two production tasks involving native speakers of Czech, we show how definitions of these two categories are problematized when multiple forms per context are entrenched, or when pre-emption seems to occur in the absence of entrenchment: in other words, pre-emption occurs via entrenchment of uncertainty. We explain the results by adopting a broader, usage-based perspective. We examine the relationship between frequency (as proxy for exposure) and reference-work information (as proxy for a priori structure) to assess their connection with our experimental results. We assign a role to frequency as helping to form perceptions of “suitable” and “unsuitable” forms, but also note places where non-frequency factors predominate. “Structure” as represented by reference-work recommendations appears to have no significant connection to our experimental results; we discuss reasons for this.

Nutrition security and traditional food markets in Africa: gender insights

Malnutrition is a major global challenge. Multiple forms, from underweight to obesity, exist, and several forms coexist within communities and households. Traditional food markets, also known as wet, local, or informal markets, are widespread in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and are a key place where people buy and sell food and socially interact, especially those vulnerable to malnutrition. As such they are vital to food and nutrition security. While it is recognized that gender is an important consideration in food and nutrition security, very little has been published in peer reviewed journals, with respect to gender and traditional food markets in SSA. This mini review aims to explore the nexus role of traditional food markets and gender in food and nutrition security. This study presents a narrative literature review, informed by literature identified in a systematic manner. Four databases were searched for key terms, including nutrition, different forms of malnutrition, gender, traditional food markets, and vendors. The papers provided insight into two main topics pertaining to the role of traditional food market practices, gender, and food and nutrition security. While few papers were identified in this mini review, they illustrated insightful nuances into traditional food markets, gender, and food and nutrition security. There is a need for explicitly framed gender studies that can better inform the limited existing knowledge of the experiences of gender and nutritional security of women and men in traditional food markets in SSA.

The publicness of private foundations: Online accountability and Internet presence

AbstractPrivate foundations face persistent charges of plutocracy and secrecy, undermining their legitimacy as philanthropic organizations that contribute to the public good, yet they can respond to the criticism proactively through online accountability and Internet presence. To what extent do foundations use web‐based tools to demonstrate public accountability, how are these tools used for this purpose, and what explains foundation participation in this form of self‐regulation? We argue that managerialism, organizational fields, and stakeholder relationships will matter for online accountability and Internet presence because they capture or reflect the “publicness” of private foundations. We test our conceptual framework on two online tools—websites and social media—using a dataset of private foundations located in Washington state. We find that few private foundations have a website or a social media account, and our analysis of those tools suggests that substantive accountability is not a high priority for those that do. Our empirical models nevertheless reveal that several components of our conceptual framework are associated with multiple forms of disclosure (operational, financial, and performance) and dialogic communication, a contribution to research on nonprofit accountability that also advances the literature on the organizational behavior of foundations.

Has the concept of censorship gone astray? How to operationalize muddy waters? Half a century of censorship in Portugal

ABSTRACT Censorship studies are currently facing an important conceptual change towards enlarging the phenomena deemed to be censorial (class, race, gender), while risking losing sight of the conceptual specificity of what censorship means. If everything is censorship, then the concept loses explanatory power, but if we restrict the concept it fails to account for the multiple forms censorship takes to be powerful. By mapping censorship studies about the Portuguese dictatorship (1926–1974), we propose an overreaching framework to study the censorship phenomenon in general that articulates its institutional-regulatory and socio-structural dimensions. This articulation enables us to understand the dynamics, productivity and mutations of the regulatory dimension, without losing the conceptual specificity of censorship by assuming that only when this dimension manifests itself can structural constraints be considered part of the censorship process. This framework allows to identify which scientific areas, their preferential objects and methodologies, facilitate an articulated approach to censorship.

Exploring students' proportional reasoning in mathematical literacy problem solving: recognition of multiplicative relationship strategies

Introduction. A multiplicative relationship represents the association between two or more variables in the form of multiplication. For example, when one variable increases, the other variable also escalates proportionally. Accordingly, it is important for students to have the ability to identify the pattern of multiplicative relationships, describe them in the form of equations or comparisons, and apply them in different situations. This study describes the strategies used by students in recognizing multiplicative relationships, particularly in solving mathematical literacy problems containing proportional situations. Study participants and methods. The research was conducted in three junior high schools located in Malang, Indonesia, involving 191 ninth-grade students. They were asked to work on a mathematical literacy question, and then their answer sheets were corrected and grouped based on the developmental stage of proportional reasoning, particularly in recognizing multiplicative relationships. Furthermore, the subjects were interviewed in-depth concerning their experience in solving literacy problems in proportional situations. This study used a qualitative approach with a phenomenological research type. the subject's experience was investigated holistically, along with the appearing phenomenon. The garnered data were interpreted through continuous reflection and analysis for a deeper understanding. The results were then summarized. Results. In this study, two variations of strategies have been identified being used by students at the stage of recognizing multiplicative relationships in solving mathematical literacy problems, namely the multiple strategies and the pattern strategy. This finding serves as a valuable contribution to understanding students' strategies and behaviors in recognizing multiplicative relationships, which has not been revealed in previous studies. The main difference between these two strategy variations lies in the approach used in solving the problem. The multiples strategy emphasizes the conceptual linking of quantity values between objects, relying on the conceptual shifts that transpire as students navigate through their additive reasoning steps within the framework of multiplication. In this case, students need to comprehend various number concepts and number relationships, with frequent focus on multiplication as a form of repeated addition. On the other hand, pattern strategies rely on students' ability to match patterns, use the arrangement of numbers constituting the pattern, and relate them to other patterns in solving problems. Practical significance. The results of this study serve as a crucial reference for more effective and efficient mathematics learning formulation for improving students' proportional reasoning.

Deformation and Energy Absorption Performance of Functionally Graded TPMS Structures Fabricated by Selective Laser Melting

Triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) structures have unique geometries and excellent mechanical properties, which have attracted much attention in many fields. However, the relationship between different filling forms and different directions of functionally graded TPMS structures on energy absorption has not been fully studied. In this study, a functionally graded strategy was proposed to investigate the effect of filling form and direction gradient on the energy absorption of TPMS structures. The design of functionally graded Gyroid and Diamond TPMS cellular structures with multiple forms was characterized, and the structures were fabricated using additive manufacturing technology. The effects of uniformity and different directional gradients on the deformation and energy absorption properties of the structures were studied experimentally and numerically. According to the compression test results, it was found that different filling forms of the TPMS structure behave differently in terms of yield plateau and deformation pattern, and the sheet structures can develop a better deformation pattern to enhance energy absorption capacity. Functionally graded sheet Diamond TPMS cellular structures along the compression direction exhibit a 32% reduction in initial peak force, providing more advantages in structural deformation and energy absorption. More closely, it is possible to further reduce the initial peak force, delay the densification point, and thus increase the energy absorption capacity by designing functionally graded sheet Diamond TPMS based cellular structures. The results of this study provide valuable guidance for the design of high-performance impact-protection components.

Empirical Analysis for Classification of Fake News through Text Representation

Fake news refers to inaccurate or deceptive information that is portrayed as legitimate news. It is intentionally generated and disseminated to mislead the public. Fake news takes on multiple forms, including altered visuals, invented narratives, and misrepresented accounts of actual occurrences, although this work focuses solely on textual content. Initially, the focus of this work is to evaluate various pre-processing techniques involved in fake news detection, such as TF-IDF, GloVe, and Integer Encoding. Each of these techniques has its own way of converting text to numerical format. Despite numerous studies in this field, there is still a research gap regarding the comparative analysis of TF_IDF (Term Frequency Inverse Document Frequency), Integer Encoding, and GloVe (Global Vector for Word Representation) specifically for fake news tasks. This study aims to bridge this gap by evaluating and comparing the performance of these three popular preprocessing techniques. Next, three RNN variants are used in this experiment for the classification task. They are SimpleRNN (Simple Recurrent Neural Network), LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory) and GRU (Gated Recurrent Unit). The reason behind choosing RNN variants is RNN is capable of capturing long term dependencies. It is proven to be effective in handling sequential data. It consists of memory that stores the previous important content. GloVe showed high accuracy in GRU model, and it also used only less computational resources, but LSTM took more time and required more computational resources. The results produced by GRU and LSTM for GloVe were better than the rest of the combinations. Integer Encoding also produced good results. But TF-IDF gives poor results when fed to Deep Learning models like RNN, LSTM, and GRU, but when it is fed to Machine Learning Model it gives good accuracy. This is due to sparse matrix generation based on the importance of term frequency. The findings highlight the advantages and limitations of each algorithm, providing valuable guidance for researchers and practitioners in choosing the suitable method for their specific needs. The experimental finding of this work is that GloVe with GRU produces the highest accuracy of 92.15%

In A Woman's World: Gender, Vulnerability and Violence in Louise Mey's Les Ravagé(e)s

This article proposes a tripartite examination of the interplay between gender and crime in Les Ravagé(e)s, a 2016 police procedural by French crime author Louise Mey, which tracks Inspector Alex Dueso's investigation of a series of brutal assaults on men across France. In the first section of this article, Dueso's displays of empowerment and authority in her role as a respected police officer are contrasted with her vulnerability to gender-based harassment from suspects and other agents of the police and justice systems. The nature of her policework, and her daily encounters with the consequences of gender-based violence for both men and women alike, are then considered for their exposition of the overlaps between multiple forms of violence committed by individuals, systems and the state under patriarchy. Finally, I examine Mey's use of a rape-revenge narrative in light of what Claire Henry describes as ‘the ethics of revenge’ (5), and thus interrogate the feminist potential of a novel that positions collective, extrajudicial, violent reprisals as acts of female solidarity and defence.

Mesopotamia and the Garden of Civilizations

This article draws on ethnographic fieldwork and analysis of mass media to explore how public life is perceived and made by residents in Turkey’s Syrian borderlands. Deploying two case studies from the ethnically and religiously diverse border provinces of Mardin and Hatay, we investigate how people in these borderlands contest and renegotiate terms of solidarity across multiple forms of social difference, considering how this process both responds to and is reflected in larger shift s in Turkey’s politics, economy, and public culture. In addition, we explore how differently positioned actors practice manifold forms of identification and competing forms of political alignment, paying close attention to how “ideological axes of social differentiation” (Gal and Irvine 2019) are deployed in understanding and making relations of solidarity and difference.

Translating Inquiry Into Clinical Practice: Opportunities and Barriers for Oncology Nursing.

As our scientists, researchers, and evidence-based practitioners continue to conduct multiple forms of inquiry including research, evidence-based practice (EBP), and quality improvement studies, the corpus of literature is in.

Family rejection and LGBTQ+ Asian Americans' psychological distress and disordered eating: The role of conflicts in allegiances and family shame.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ+) Asian Americans experience unique psychological health concerns at the intersection of multiple forms of marginalization. White supremacist, cisheteronormative, and colonial ideals and their structural and interpersonal manifestations may encourage family rejection of LGBTQ+ identities within Asian American family units. Family shame, conflicts in allegiances, and internalized anti-LGBTQ+ stigma were hypothesized as mediators in the association between family rejection and psychological distress and disordered eating. The present study examined family rejection and its impacts on psychological distress and disordered eating in a sample of LGBTQ+ Asian American adults (N = 155; Mage = 24.26; 30.3% gender diverse) using a cross-sectional survey design and path analysis. There was a significant serial mediation such that family rejection was positively associated with conflicts in allegiances, family shame, and psychological distress (B = .12, p = .01). The same serial mediation was nonsignificant for disordered eating (B = .04, p = .26). Results indicate the importance of considering conflicts in allegiances, family shame, and the interpersonal dynamics of LGBTQ+ Asian Americans in understanding experiences of psychological distress and disordered eating. Implications are drawn for further research, clinical work, and broader efforts addressing the larger sociocultural environment that encourages family rejection of LGBTQ+ identity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Eyes of the beholders: Multi-method relationships between internalizing and externalizing symptom dimensions and aggression risk.

Although aggression occurs across a range of disorders, associations between dimensions of psychopathology and self- and other-directed aggression are not well understood. Investigating associations between psychopathology dimensions and aggression helps further understanding about the etiology of aggression, and ultimately, can inform intervention and prevention strategies. This study adopted a multi-method approach to examine associations between internalizing and externalizing dimensions of psychopathology and self- and other-directed aggression as a function of reporter (participant and informant) and modality of aggression measurement (subjective and objective). Participants were an unselected sample of 151 racially diverse adults recruited from the community. Dimensions of psychopathology were assessed using interview and questionnaire reports from participants and collateral informants, and forms of aggression were measured via subjective reports and an objective, laboratory aggression paradigm. Analyses of participant-reported psychological symptom data consistently linked externalizing symptoms to other-directed aggression, and internalizing symptoms to self-directed aggression. Results across informant and participant reporters replicated prior findings showing a significant interaction between internalizing and externalizing dimensions in predicting intimate partner violence. Most other effects in informant models were nonsignificant. The findings uncover consistency in and replicability of relationships between dimensions of psychopathology and certain manifestations of aggression and highlight the importance of examining multiple forms of aggression in etiological research. Examining aggression through a transdiagnostic lens can help us better understand and intervene upon processes implicated in devasting forms of self- and other-directed aggression.

Indigeneity, land and labour in Paraguay

This article is focused on the politics of indigeneity, which is an increasingly important concept and a central area of dispute in a globalised world. Indigeneity encapsulates the friction between ethnicity and class identities, which cannot be understood without a full consideration of differences and relationships between landowners, other economic sectors, non-indigenous workers and indigenous people. The text specifically deals with the circumstances of Paraguay, whose process of nation building is directly related to longitudinal attacks on its indigenous peoples and the unresolved problems of land, labour and rights. The case study investigates the long-term tendencies of Paraguayan society, in particular, the ongoing expansion of agribusiness and land grabbing in the northeast of the country that tragically affect the Paĩ Tavyterã indigenous people. The discussion is based on qualitative, engaged research over several years, which considered the indigenous population as co-investigators and active socio-political players. The conclusion is that, despite the fact that Paraguay is a major exporter of primary commodities, the prevailing geographical force is the accumulation of multiple forms of social, ecological and even economic degradation. Against those perverse trends, the important reaction of the Paĩ Tavyterã, as well as of other indigenous peoples, and their struggle to recover their land and socio-ecological relations greatly complicate national politics and challenge the hegemony of export-oriented agribusiness.

Types of Discrimination as Predictors of Identity Concealment in a Sexual and Gender Minority Sample

AbstractThe present study examined the role of different forms of discrimination (individual-level, institutional-level, and both types of discrimination) in predicting identity concealment behaviors in a sample of sexual and gender minorities (SGM; n = 2296) living in Eastern Europe. Both the choice to engage in identity concealment at all and the frequency to which an individual concealed their identity were regressed onto each type of discrimination. Results of a logistic regression revealed that those who had experienced individual-level, institutional-level, or both types of discrimination were more likely to choose to conceal their identity than those who did not experience discrimination. Using a multivariate regression, each type of discrimination was found to have a positive association with frequency of identity concealment, with those who experienced both types of discrimination showing the strongest association. However, when controlling for country, the association between institutional-level discrimination and frequency of identity concealment was no longer significant. These findings suggest that not all forms of discrimination may have the same impact on SGM individuals and that experiencing multiple forms of discrimination may have compounding effects on one’s choice to conceal their identity and the frequency to which they engage in this behavior.

Intersecting vulnerabilities and compounded risks of women asylum seekers working in care during COVID-19 in Ireland

This article explores findings from a qualitative participatory study with asylum seekers in Ireland employed in the healthcare sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. By extending an intersectional analysis framework, we demonstrate how the vulnerability of care workers living within the international protection accommodation system ‘under the care’ of the state intersects with power exercised by the neoliberal care market and is compounded by global health controls instituted during the pandemic. Participants reveal a lack of autonomy and forms of precarity that were not faced by other care workers, particularly increased risk of exposure to COVID-19 and multiple forms of stigma.